The Fine Art of Building a City’s Culture

Story by Gail Frederickson and Joanne Reynolds
Photography by Ewan Nicholson and Ken Bendiktsen

Ask most people what art is and they will speak of paintings, a favourite play or a haunting strain of music. But art is more than drama and dance, music and museums. Art, in all its forms, is the very heart and soul of a city.

Calgary, with its tradition of bold, innovative and vibrant culture, owes much of its nature to the thousands of artists, musicians and performers who make this city their home and stage. And much of this creative flavour flows from the alumni, faculty and students from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary.

The University of Calgary fine arts faculty contributes mightily to the arts and cultural life of our city,” says Colin Jackson, president and CEO of the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts. “Having robust departments provides academic advocates for the central role of the arts in community, provides research on arts practice and issues and, most importantly, gives Calgary and Alberta a constant outflow of trained, passionate artists and arts workers who initiate new art, new projects and exciting organizations.”

At least half of all U of C fine arts graduates remain in the Calgary area. In a city that appreciates energy, these innovators lead Calgary’s arts scene in a way that says culture is also fuel—fuel that generates millions of dollars in economic activity, attracts new people and business to the region and revitalizes communities.

Among the city’s nationally and internationally renowned organizations that count fine arts alumni, faculty, students or staff as integral to their success are: the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, Ground Zero Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, VoiceScapes, Calgary Theatre, Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, Calgary Opera, One Yellow Rabbit, Triangle Gallery, High Performance Rodeo, Stride Gallery, Ghost River Theatre, Quickdraw Animation Society, Blue Collar Dance and Wagon Stage.

The musical arts

Jeremy Brown believes that without the Faculty of Fine Arts, Calgary’s music scene would be a profoundly different place.

“Every one of the music faculty members are nationally and internationally recognized artists, composers, musicologists and conductors,” says the head of the music department. “Without the U of C, these people would not be here and music in this city would be greatly diminished.”

Brown says that besides the contribution of their expertise, these scholars have made the city attractive to other spectacular artists who accept invitations to visit. “Our faculty members have contributed to creating an environment where a tremendous amount of people mix and then all of them interact with the local community.”

Brown, a saxophonist, plays and records with the jazz band Verismo and has also recorded with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. As part of the university’s Urban Campus initiative, he launched jam sessions at the Salvation Army’s Centre of Hope, bringing participants from the addictions recovery group together to form an impromptu band. He hopes to be able to further expand the program by eventually including music students.

“In the realm of music education, we’re a huge player; we are the instrument of change,” says Brown. “We’re not only training artists, but we’re training audiences who appreciate the arts.”

Bill Chomik, principal of Kasian Architecture Interior Design and Planning Ltd. and an ardent supporter of the arts, agrees that the faculty has been a significant contributor to the artistic and cultural life of Calgary.

“We see this in the Youth Singers of Calgary, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Calgary Girls Choir, the New Music Society, Calgary Opera and many other outstanding organizations,” he says. “The U of C has been and is a major contributor to their success, locally and nationally.”

Over the years, master saxophonist and Department of Music head Jeremy Brown has helped instruct several people now pivotal in the Calgary arts scene. He says he is encouraged because of the “hotbed of activity. We’re not only training artists; we’re training audiences who appreciate the arts.”

The dramatic arts

Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP), founded in 1972 and now one of the largest theatre companies in Canada, has its home in the Martha Cohen Theatre. ATP has produced more than 200 plays—over 5,000 performances—by celebrated playwrights spanning the globe.

“A vibrant Faculty of Fine Arts is an essential institution in any city that wants to claim to be civilized and where quality of life is seen as an important value,” says Bob White, artistic director of ATP. “Theatre graduates from the U of C bring passion to their work and probably because they were trained here, all seem to believe that raising the profile of the arts in our community is as important as the work itself.”

Every year, ATP’s Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays produces new works, helping launch the careers of many of Canada’s most prominent playwrights. It has become the largest new play festival in Canada and one of the seminal events on the national arts calendar.

Faculty of Fine Arts alumna and ATP’s dramaturg Vicki Stroich, BFA’99, started with this popular theatre company as part of an internship set up by the Department of Drama for graduating students.

“It’s important in the theatre to be a self-starter and have a diversity of skills,” she says. “My experience at the U of C taught me a lot about going out and making opportunities or making the most of the opportunities I had.”

A few years ago, Stroich left Calgary to work in Toronto. She was lured back to her hometown by ATP and the offer to work as assistant dramaturg. “As much as I enjoyed Toronto and my job at Harbourfront Centre, the opportunity to learn about dramaturgy hands-on at a company as highly regarded for developing and promoting new Canadian theatre as ATP was too exciting an offer to turn down.”

Stroich says that while her work may not be the most lucrative profession, it makes her happy to know she is making an important contribution to the community. “I know I’m not the only alumni who has taken those experiences at the U of C and endeavoured to make a contribution to the arts community in Calgary and nationally.”

According to a web survey conducted by Jim Dugan, head of the U of C’s drama department, there are 32 U of C alumni identified in the top levels of management in 14 theatre companies in Calgary. This does not include the frequent appearances of leading actors on local theatre stages who also started their careers at the university.

The visual arts

The influence of the University of Calgary is clearly visible in art galleries across Calgary. Most have included exhibitions created by artists with university connections and Department of Art graduates are museum curators, directors and art teachers.

Artist-run galleries and organizations such as Triangle Gallery of Contemporary Art, Masters Gallery, Newzones, Stride, Truck, The New Gallery, The Alberta Printmakers Society and Artist-Proof Gallery all include U of C faculty, technicians, alumni and students among their founders, leaders, boards of directors and exhibitors.

And many galleries such as the Herringer Kiss Gallery, Trepanier Baer Gallery, Virginia Christopher Gallery and Axis Gallery carry artwork on a permanent basis by faculty members currently teaching in the Department of Art.

The exhibitions at these galleries and museums are visited by thousands of viewers and buyers every year, contributing to the financial viability of the arts scene in Calgary.

In addition, the Department of Art reaches out to corporate Calgary and the public in countless ways. With CENERA, a local human resource and business consulting firm, it started the Emerging Canadian Artist Program Initiative in 2001 to give beginning artists an opportunity to display and sell their work in a corporate environment. The partnership is a unique opportunity for students to get their work out into the community.

Ronald Kostyniuk, a professor who specializes in art fundamentals, design and sculpture, says that one of the most important roles that studio and art history courses perform at the University of Calgary is to develop an informed audience.

“Informed members in society that can rely on themselves to make determinate value judgments regarding aesthetic matters … are an essential part of any vibrant community.”

The performing arts

The growing and vibrant dance scene in Alberta can be directly tied to the success of the program of dance at the University of Calgary. Blue Collar Dance Company founder Tara Blue and Allara Gooliaff, BSc’92, artistic director of Three Left Feet, say their companies are two of many rooted in the U of C, and that most of the professional dancers or dance companies in the city stay strongly connected to the dance program at the university.

“There are many dance companies in Calgary and many more independent dance artists that all have roots in the U of C,” says Gooliaff. “The Calgary Board of Education and the Calgary Catholic School Board also directly benefit from the program of dance. And the local need has not stopped growing. Indeed, as more dancers enter different professional environments, the snowball effect creates more interest in dance.”

Blue says that dance and drama are very much collaborative partners in Calgary. “And the U of C’s dance instructors are the people who are the most experienced in this regard, the most organized, the most courageous—they were the ones to build the inroads that allow for alliances between the great companies that exist in the city.”

Vicki Adams Willis, BFA’72, is a native Calgarian who has been a member of the dance community her entire life. A fine arts alumnus, as well as a faculty member for 16 years (1973-89), she has not only witnessed the enormous impact the faculty has had on the community but has experienced it first hand.

Co-founder and artistic director of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD), she says that the 24-year-old dance company grew out of the work she was doing in the program of dance. “It was certainly the opportunity of working under the aegis of the Faculty of Fine Arts that led me to a discovery of and passion for an historical spirit and essence of jazz that by the 1980s had been drastically eroded,” she says.

A sabbatical in 1983 took Adams Willis to the U.S. and Europe. That experience, along with the enthusiasm of two graduating dance students, Hannah Stilwell and Michèle Moss (who would become fellow company co-founders), led to the birth of DJD. 

The company grew quickly and in 1989, Adams Willis made the decision to leave her position at the university to devote her energy full-time to DJD. A close association with the Faculty of Fine Arts has continued throughout DJD’s history—the U of C continues to provide invaluable feeder and support systems and DJD employs many dance, music and drama students, faculty and graduates.

“This is clear evidence of the huge impact that the U of C fine arts faculty has had on DJD, but I must point out that this is far from a unique story with countless other arts organizations as indebted to the faculty as we are,” says Adams Willis. “In short, the cultural landscape of our city has indeed been immensely and profoundly enriched by the existence of the faculty.”